


pulmonary edema

by feltstrips



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Curses, Experimental Style, Horror, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:32:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feltstrips/pseuds/feltstrips
Summary: Oh kelpie with your dripping maneseducing valiant men of heart,who by your spell would all be swainand every sense in them, depart.





	pulmonary edema

**Author's Note:**

> this is kinda old bc ive spent at least a year fussing over it and getting nothing done but yknow what its fine its cool its fine

you were eight years old once. dad, john had a hunt down in illinois. he went to it, his hunt down in illinois, and plopped you and your brother at a river for a day. it was very hot. there were too many people, and you two sat on the edge of the boat ramp in colorful swim gear, waiting for something to happen. dad was around-ish, of course. but you and sammy- too little to be fun yet- got told to sit, stay, while he talks to the raft guides. not sure what a raft guide is but, y'know.

the river was named something like black, or maybe current. you might not have enjoyed it ‘cause you were greasy with walmart sunscreen and very, very hot. the day was baking your skin off, and mosquitoes were eating you alive. but dad said sit, stay. so you were there, at the edge of a river named current or black.

\---

you're seventeen, now, it's another hotter-than-hell midwestern day, and sam is sneaking out of the house. third time this week. he must think you're really stupid. this house- somewhere in missouri- came cheap, a hundred something for the month, and looks it. fits the bill. means both of you are itching to get out of that crumbling rattrap. so yeah, he vanishes off into the bright green woods for hours at a time. it's probably a girl, or some neighbor kids out in the sticks, some company that's not related. a rare treat.

you let him have it most days. but this week, your second here, this day, you're hot and bored. he slipped out the back door in a pair of too-small gym shorts and a plain white t-shirt. flip-flops, too, god knows where those came from. so you followed him, 'cause this stupid outfit, stupid shoes meant something outside of the usual.

(and those are very short shorts. you wanna tease him for it.)

\---

he catches you about ten feet into the forest, your loud big biker boots stomping like you're bushwhacking with your feet.

he says, “really, man?” all sass, “thought dad taught you to tail better than that.”

you grunt, yank a hunk of thornbush off your jeans. you say, “ happened to be in the area.”

he sighs, long-suffering, and turns the way he was going. “whatever, jerk. just don't make it weird.”

he leaves, knowing you'll follow, and you stomp after him, crushing everything you can underfoot. there's a lot of stuff to crush- it's been a while since you'd been out in a good 'ol midwest bushwood, and the thick carpet of debris and vines trips you up more than once. but the oaks and maple peter off eventually, giving way to firs. evergreen, shaking needles, christmas trees in june. clear enough between that a deer trail appears out of nowhere. 

sam knows this path, you guess, cause he leads right through the loose-packed trunks without a second thought. he's sure of himself here, picks up sticks and twirls them, childish, grabs edible plants chews 'em up for the hell of it. clover, dill weed, violet.

“want some?”

“bet a squirrel pissed on that, sam.” you say, and run straight into a spiderweb. 

\---

you guess you were wrong about the potential girl, about the neighbor kids. there's no one here but you two and the forest, guiding you in, leading you down a trail to- whatever. that's what they do in slaughterhouses, you think. but whatever.

then chills creep down your spine minute the ring of pines is breached. now ringing the edge of a dark lake-pond-puddle thing, open up to the flat grey sky, a yawning maw. there's pine needles everywhere, a decomposing lawn chair on the edge of the trail and god, you're getting bad vibes. evil vibes. can't believe sammy, your sammy has been coming to this gloom-and-doom shithole all alone. sam keeps going. doesn't feel it. he reaches the bank's edge before you realize he's planning to swim, which is the worst idea in the history of ideas.

the bank bogs down between his bare feet. grave of a million dead leaves squished up between his toes. it's really gross. he laughs quietly, though, trying to show how confident he is, and steps further in. there must have been a spill here. chemical leak, maybe, antifreeze. the pond- under a film of pollen- is dusted over with shine that spreads out around his ankles in the swirls of an oil spill. vicious, monochrome. you don't want it to touch him. 

still, he pulls his shirt over his head, cotton stretching over arms and elbows. end up tossed in your direction. you let it hit the needle carpet ‘cause the little puffed-out muffin top of baby fat above his gym shorts draws your eye like a magnet. he's still a bony lil' stick above it, all twenty-four-sheathed-knives ribs and knobby elbows, but somehow the ring of chub makes him look delicate. girlish, almost. he'd hate to hear you say that, like how he hates it when you pull his long hair and call him princess. anyway.

with every step he takes more of that pale, pale, baby-fat skin is swallowed into the dark water. bubbles follow in his wake, where the oil film parts, and you guess it's from air trapped beneath the mud. it's a strange thought, sam's feet breaking apart ancient gas pockets.

you say, “ 's farts, dude,” and wrinkle your nose, grin at him even though you know better. he smile-glares, the moles on his face twitching, arms shivering out in the air, cold twigs. the water looks freezing, yeah. you don't know why he hasn't scrambled to the bank yet.

he's in deep, now, deeper than he should be, dark water up to his chest.

“why aren't you swimming?” you ask. he grumbles, half-shivering noise, and says “it's like, all mud.”

you laugh even though you don't feel like it, shifting on the bowed pine you'd made a seat. that's so, so not right. this isn't a lake, it's a tar pit, a cursed indian burial ground. you say, “mud?” like you want to hear more. hearing more is the last thing you want. you wanna go fucken' home.

he glances back, still shaking, still wobbling a further in. “yeah. i'm up to my damn,” he pauses like he's waiting for dad to jump out of the bushes and tell him to watch his language, “my damn dick in mud.” now, you manage to laugh at that, kicking up a tar-mud-water to flick off your toes at him.

“man, sammy. gonna lose your virginity to a swamp monster.”

he says, “shut up,”, but he's trying not to smile, you know it. he says, “jackass,” and keeps on walking. trudging, more like.

you watch in silence after that, uneasily. the underfed part of you that's not a stupid teenager is saying don't let him, dean, keep him safe. this will kill him, and it sounds same as dad, john. you ignore it. s'not the real big man with a gun. but you blink and sam's gone. just, gone, disappeared, not here nor there nor anywhere else. walked out far enough and got ate up.

“sam?” you shout, craning your neck to search the woods behind you. he's nowhere to be found, didn't scramble out, and the panic settles heavy in your gut. the bubbles in the pond that'd been following him stop dead-center in the swampy middle. you freeze, hands shaking, and realize there's nothing moving in the water. no ripples, no waves, no pale-stick arms waving around, drowning. the wind whistles through your ears, singing empty, empty. 

\---

oh, god, you're eight again. you're eight again and sammy's staring up at you from the bottom of the river named black or current, breathing water, and dad isn't here. he had stood up, tottered over, and was sucked underwater like someone pulled him.

he didn't scream. he didn't flail, or swim, or move at all. sammy lay there, staring up at dumb-fuck-frozen brother, breathing water and looking as calm as ever. the neon baby swim trunks he'd been wrestled into waved with the current, and you couldn't move.

\---

he's been gone under for almost a minute. it's seconds away from ending in you diving after him, even with the hateful, curdled water. you inhale sharp, tell yourself it'll be cold, deal with it, and steel yourself to jump; but you're saved when a mop of hair pops out of the far side. he yells happily, dripping in your direction.

the panic disappears with a breath out of your lungs, and you swear, you could kill him. you holler back, “the fuck, sam?” and he laughs at you.

when you're there, jogging over by that soggy bank, you see he's beaming wide as ever and holding something down underwater. maybe he's trying to drown it. the thought surprises you.

he says, “dean, dude, you'll never guess what.”

you say, “bet i won't,” some anger, fear leaching out of you.

he grins flashbulb quick and lunges at you, whipping brackish water everywhere, the thing he drowned clutched out in front of him. it's a skull, his fingers looped through the eye sockets, and he digs the dirty brown-flecked teeth of a horse or something into your shin. you curse and stumble back, fall on your ass, and grab at your leg. it's a tiny scratch, didn't even break the skin. he laughs high and crooked again.

“now we've both been bit by a dead horse,” he says, still giggling like it's the funniest damn thing. like this is okay.

you say, “the fuck?” again, loud and big, angry, but he is too far laughing, knee-deep in dead leaf mud and holding a horse skull. there's a red-bled cut on his wrist, right between two moles. connecting the dots when he holds it out to you, licks red and black water off it.

“it was at the bottom, teeth up. tore myself open feeling for it.”

“isn't it cool?”

fuck no, you think, fuck no. hell no. but you say, “we ain't taking that thing home,” and wonder how in the hell he could hold his breath that long.

he frowns, settling down into the muck, skull on his slick-gym-shorts lap despite the rotting flesh still stuck to it in places. you want very desperately to salt and burn that thing. hell, salt and burn this whole place, see if that black black oil slick can light up.

“why not?” he says, like you're taking candy from a baby.

you say, “cause it's st,” and cut off the rest of “stealing” with your teeth, spit out “stupid” instead.

he says, “okay,” not arguing with anything but the drop of his shoulders. have to practically drag him out of the shitwater when you get tired of playing lifeguard. but you wait until you're both halfway home to double around, grab that fucking horse skull and throw it into the pond as hard as you can. you don't look back.

\---

when you were eight, dad, john came to check on his sons and found one sitting like a bump on a log, and the other playing fish.

dad yanked sammy out. only then he started screaming, crying, and you could swear he was saying with his itty-bitty flailing fists and scrunched-up wails that he wanted to go back under more than anything.

he coughed up river water for the rest of the weekend, his tiny lungs full of it. you don't think they ever dried out.

\---

night after the pond bullshit, you find sam shaving his head in the shower. it's a sad thing, to walk in on your little brother buzzing off hunks of his pretty princess hair, old clippers tangled up, sounding like a whole fucking swarm of bees. he stops when he sees you, not looking ashamed but close.

he says, holding out the matted-up clippers, “help me out?”

you sigh and go get the kitchen shears. kid's gonna scalp himself doing that. after a couple minutes of cutting and buzzing with sam perched on the edge of the tub, the #2 guard does the job. he's mown short.

you don't ask him why, really, just call him cue ball even though he isn't really bald, get punched in the arm for it. sweep the hair off his skinny shoulders. but the question hangs in the air, and you might not get an answer if sam's thousand-yard stare into the mirror means anything. you hover, not really wanting to leave but past the point of awkward, and he still doesn't move.

he says, “it was getting caught in things,” and points to the shower drain. all you think at first is how much of a bitch that's gonna be to get out, but then you look closer.

the not-so-pretty-now princess hair wrapped around itself in the dip of the tub is full of stuff. leaves, twigs, pond scum. pollen. a tiny white thing you don't want to realize is a tooth, or a bone.

you say, “alright, man. clean it out,” and act like you aren't feeling fit to puke.

\---

the house is pretty alright, actually. it's big, only a bit loose around the edges. you and sam actually can have separate rooms for once; his is right by the stairs, the one with the big ol window, and yours is across from that. dad is downstairs as an afterthought, and someone could creep across the space between your rooms without waking him up. if they wanted to. 

you know this 'cause sam crawls into your bed later, bringing with him the smell of used soap, wet skin. sammy crawls into your bed smelling of a mess cleaned up and says, “won't lose my virginity to a swamp monster.”

you rack it up to sleepy kid stupidity and give him half your pillow. “uh-huh,” you say, agreeing because something about this scares you bad. the room is quiet for a minute. about as quiet as you can get out here, what with the cicadas and spring peepers and everything else screaming their night-bug heads off. you can empathize.

he says, “that would be dumb." you snort, breathless, and wish this room had something besides a leaky water bed. you're gonna drown in here.

he stays the night.

\---

you end up keeping a journal, same as dad. except yours isn't leather-bound and worn, cool, badass; it's a dollar-tree notebook, a powdery small paper thing, and instead of monsters you write about your insane baby brother. 

alright, to be fair, insane isn't the right word. right now it isn't. you should tell dad, john. you really fucking should, but-but-but; you're scared of what the big man with a gun would do to little, weird, crazy sammy. you wouldn't be if you knew this was just nothing. so you keep a journal, track and observe him like an animal. wait for something to happen.

\---

a happening: you have a dream. several, in fact. recurring nightmares. if you want. you click the blue ink-pen so fast you think it might burst into flames and try way to put this on paper. slow going.

_entry one:_

_the pond was in my head last night. with that stupid horse skull. sam too._

the slick-sick shimmering water, so different under the moonlight. it looks soft. underwater, the world is silk sheets.

sam stands behind you on the pine needles, on the bank, and you can see him out the back of your head. he reaches out. grasps your shoulder, spins you around light as a feather. he pulls his fist back and slams it into your nose. you hear a faint crack and there's a curtain of blood unfolding down your face, the blood too-thin and spreading easily. it doesn't hurt but you feel novocaine numb. 

you laugh because that's the next best thing to crying. you laugh and drive your own fist into his stomach. he vomits pure water all over you, choking on the force of impact, and headbutts you in turn. this goes on. 

you wake up.

\---  
_  
sammy isn't eating._

 _he isn't losing any weight, either._  
  
\----  
_  
entry two:_

 _dad was in this one. he_  
  
dad, john is dead. he is lying in the trunk of the impala, and he feels insubstantial when you pull him out, cradle him in your arms, try and shake him awake. he is dead and there are ligature marks around his neck, a tooth in his hair and you don't know if it is his or yours or something else's.

you wake up.

\---  
_keep stepping on slime and leaves and mud and shit that's just tracked around the house. shows up every morning.  
he could at least cover his fucking tracks._

 _locking the doors tonight._  
\---

_just sam._

he is standing at the foot of your bed, dripping wet, not a stitch of clothing on him. the horse skull rests atop his head and covers his eyes. he laughs because that's the next best thing to crying.

you wake up.

you're pretty sure.

\---  
_  
dad's been gone a damn long while. stir crazy is an understatement around here._

 _why fucking missouri?_  
  
\---  
_christ_  
  
sam is dead and in your bed again. rigor mortis keeps his arms wrapped tight and you are locked in place. he rots.

\---  
_  
there's a whole mess of mud and junk in sam's bed._

_he can wash his own sheets._

_i'm locking all the doors and windows tonight put up tripwires if i fucking need to._  
  
\---

it's one week from the last entry in your wilderness guide to insane brother when you find nothing in the drawer where you stashed the notebook but a sodden scrap of paper. 

“asshole” is written on it in bold, waterstained ink. “asshole yourself, bitch,” you mutter to no one, feeling the rug pull out from under you, and toss the scrap into the toilet. from whence it came. 

sam's waiting at the kitchen table when you come downstairs, looking very smug.

you say, “so what'd you do with it?”

he looks at you from under his eyebrows, one hand running over his shaved-short hair. back, forth, back, forth, sound like wind through a dry wheat field. picked up that tick after the haircut. always does it when he's lying. he lies a lot these days.

“threw it in the garbage,” he says, and he knows you don't believe it. there's black-brown crescents under his nails. 

“figured. what d'you want for breakfast?”

**Author's Note:**

> and then they fell to the ground and started fucking


End file.
